Trenary Back On Ice, Nervous But Hopeful

May 05, 1991|By Phil Hersh, Chicago Tribune.

BALTIMORE — She is a three-time national champion as well as a world champion, and Jill Trenary still felt like a rookie Friday night.

Nervous anticipation best described her mood, and no wonder. Trenary`s appearance on opening night of the Tour of Olympic and World Figure Skating Champions was her first performance since an exhibition early fall.

Since then, Trenary has undergone two ankle surgeries, moved (last week)

from Colorado Springs to Cleveland, changed coaches for the second time in two years, missed an entire competitive season and watched three other U.S. women sweep the medals at the 1991 World Championships.

``I feel a lot better about everything,`` Trenary said. ``My foot isn`t stiff after skating any more, and I`m ready to go from here to the Olympics.`` Trenary, who now has a fight to win one of the three spots on the U.S. women`s team, is using the 30-city tour to get back into skating shape. She has had just two days of work with her new coach, 1960 Olympic champion Carol Heiss Jenkins.

``If there is any point I don`t feel I`m improving, I`ll just drop off and go back to Cleveland to practice.`` she said.

- Ice shavings: Tonya Harding, women`s national figure skating champion, is contemplating the risky move of coaching herself with the aide of a video camera. ``We`re in negotiations on that,`` said Dody Teachman, Harding`s coach since 1989. . . . Christopher Bowman, the 1989 national champion, has become engaged to former Canadian pairs skater Cindy Landry. . . . Katy Wood of Winnetka, badly hurt in a fall last November in the Soviet Union, has returned to pairs skating with a new partner, Joel McKeever. Wood lost hearing in one ear as a result of the fall. . . . Another local pairs skater, Sharon Carz of Skokie, has also taken up with a new partner, John Denton, with whom Carz is skating in a movie currently being filmed in Canada.

- The cholera epidemic in South America has forced a switch of the under-17 soccer World Championship to Mexico. The U.S. has qualified for the tournament, in which two rules changes will be used on an experimental basis: 1) no passing the ball backward to the goalie to relieve offensive pressure;

2) offside called only in the final 16.5 meters of the offensive end. . . . Poor Toto. The scoring hero of Italy`s 1990 World Cup team has gone since Nov. 18 without a goal for his pro team, Juventus of Turin. Schillaci has even been benched from time to time. . . . As if Diego Maradona didn`t have enough problems: The Argentine soccer star lost $180,000 worth of possessions when a container carrying them from Naples to Buenos Aires was robbed while the boat was at sea. And, a couple days before being arrested for possession and distribution of cocaine, his fishing boat sank at anchorage in a storm.

- Salt Lake City suddenly finds itself an even-money choice to become host city of the 1998 Winter Olympics in a vote that will be taken this June. Nagano, Japan, which had been favored, has been plagued by environmental protests. Other bidders: Aosta, Italy; Ostersund, Sweden; Jaca, Spain; and Sochi, Soviet Union. . . . Dr. Leroy Walker, former president of the U.S. track federation and former chancellor of North Carolina Central University, has joined the organizing committee of the 1996 Atlanta Olympics as senior vice president for sports.